You contradict the Word at every turn. There is one Gospel. That Gospel is personal to each believer - including Paul. The Old Testament Scriptures predicted the Messiah from the Garden. The LORD said in Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” The bruising of Satan’s head by Christ broke the power of sin over the penitent sinner. Jesus made a way of escape for us. He didn’t leave Adam and Eve – our first parents – naked, hopeless and condemned. No. But by a gracious act of mercy He created a way of escape.
Paul, in Galatians 3:8-9, shows that Abraham was saved through the same inspired Gospel as we are today. It was the good news of salvation, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It says: “the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”
The same glorious Gospel runs from the Old to the New Testament. It involves one ongoing progressive harmonious revelation of the person and work of Christ. He is man’s only redeemer. He is man’s only hope. Notwithstanding, the Old Testament saints were looking at our Savior from a more obscure perspective, and their revelation of Him was more veiled than that of the new covenant saints. However, they embraced the same overriding life-changing message.
The old covenant saints were looking forward with anticipation to Christ’s earthly assignment on man’s behalf, while the new covenant Christian is looking back to His victorious earthly ministry. Salvation came in both testaments through the enlightening power of the Gospel. We see in this passage that it the glad tiding of good news that we enjoy today was proclaimed to Abraham and he embraced it by faith.
Repeated Scripture shows the continuity between the old covenant Gospel message and the new covenant Gospel message. It also shows the harmony between the people of God in the Old Testament and the people of God in the New Testament.
1 Peter 4:4-6, “they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”
Previous generations have heard the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those that had eye to see embraced Him, those that were blind rejected Him. There is one Gospel that has gradually developed through clearer revelation. All the truth we find in the New Testament can normally be found in the Old Testament, albeit sometimes veiled. This not does in any way suggest 2 Gospels. There is only one Gospel, one faith, one overall covenant of grace, one election and one salvation.
Hebrews 3:17-19 4:1-2: “with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”
The writer to the Hebrews is here showing us that the Gospel was indeed preached onto natural Israel in the Old Testament. This is the same Gospel that we have today. This Gospel produced the same fruit then, in those that got it, as it does in us today. Those who rejected that liberating message back then faced the same awful consequences as those who do the same today. The Gospel in essentially the good news of Jesus Christ. He is man’s only Savior. He is man’s only hope. The Old Testament saints looked forward by faith to His appearing. We today look back and rejoice in His appearing 2000 years ago.
